seeded Nadia Petrova breezed through her first round match with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Olga Govortsova of Belarus at The MPS Group Championships on Tuesday. The 10th-ranked Petrova was ahead 4-2 in the second set, with wind gusting to 48kph, when Govortsova broke and held to tie it at 4-4. Petrova, who won 76 percent of her first-serve points, took a 5-4 lead in a game with five deuces. She added one of her four aces in the final game. The Russian will meet 14-year-old American Madison Keys in the next round. Other winners were fifth-seeded Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada and Anastasia Rodionova of Russia. Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia fought off three match points to beat qualifier Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia in a third-set tiebreaker. Jankovic downs Schiavone In Barcelona, world number four Jelena Jankovic thrashed Italy's Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-1 in the first round of the Andalucia Tennis Championships on Tuesday. The second-seeded Serb broke Schiavone five times on the clay in windy conditions in Marbella in southern Spain and will face Selima Sfar in the last 16 after the Tunisian beat Spain's Estrella Cabeza Candela 6-3, 7-6. World number one and top seed Serena Williams is due to play her first-round match against Klara Zakopolova of the Czech Republic on Wednesday. An injury-hampered Serena suffered a heavy defeat to Victoria Azarenka, the 19-year-old from Belarus, in the final of the Sony Ericsson Open on Saturday. Organizers said she arrived in Marbella on Monday looking tired and had trained twice on Tuesday. Melzer wins on clay In Houston, third-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria rallied to beat Robert Kendrick of the United States 6-1, 7-5 in the first round of the US Men's Clay Court Championships on Monday. Melzer pounced on Kendrick's serve in the first set but couldn't maintain the pace. Kendrick took advantage by breaking the Austrian in the first and seventh games of the second set to take a 5-2 lead. It appeared the match was headed for a third set before Melzer broke back in the eighth game when Kendrick double-faulted and hit an unforced backhand error on the final two points. Kendrick then double-faulted at break point in the 10th game and fought off one match point in the final game before he hit a backhand into the net on the final point. “I started rushing. I tried to do too much too early,” Melzer said. “On hard court, you have one, two shots in a point. Here, you have to try to be mentally alert.” Top-seeded James Blake of the US, last year's runner-up, will face Guillermo Canas of Argentina in Tuesday's featured match. Unseasonably low temperatures in the 60s and a steady wind blew across the country club's Stadium Court.
